Efficient modification of storage system metadata

A computer program product for updating metadata associated with data blocks, the computer program product comprising:

• a non-transitory machine readable medium having program code embodied therewith, the program code to,
• receive an indication of a data block, wherein the indication comprises a first block identifier, wherein the data block is a physical data block or a logical data block;
• insert the first block identifier into a first subset of a first log, wherein the first log comprises a plurality of subsets, wherein each of the plurality of subsets comprises a plurality of block identifiers;
• sort the plurality of block identifiers of the first subset;
• generate a second log comprising the plurality of block identifiers of each of the plurality of subsets of the first log;
• select a second block identifier from the second log;
• and
• update metadata associated with the second block identifier.

A device comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a machine readable storage medium having program code stored therein that is executable by the processor to cause the device to,
• sort a first plurality of block identifiers based, at least in part, on a measure of spatial locality;
• sort a second plurality of block identifiers based, at least in part, on the measure of spatial locality;
• incrementally merge at least the first plurality of block identifiers and the second plurality of block identifiers into a third plurality of block identifiers based, at least in part, on the measure of spatial locality;
• and
• update a block of data, wherein the block of data corresponds to metadata associated with a plurality of block identifiers of the third plurality of block identifiers.